MS: 'The gloomy night is gath'ring fast'

Date:

1786

Creator:

Robert Burns, Author

Object Number:

3.6275.b

Summary

1786 was a turbulent year for Robert’s personal life. The family farm at Mossgiel was under financial strain, the Armour family had obtained a warrant against him for causing Jean’s pregnancy, and the death of Margaret ‘Highland Mary’ Campbell was still fresh in Burns’s mind.

Robert made plans to escape Ayrshire and make a new start in Jamaica as a book-keeper on a sugar plantation. He arranged to sail from Greenock in the early autumn.

Reflecting on leaving the land of his birth and everyone he knew, Burns penned the poem, 'The Gloomy Night is Gath’ring Fast'. In it, he writes of his heartache of leaving home: